Kitchen worktops in Barons Court

Yes. The garden-square mansion flats are laid out with the kitchen at the rear over a light well, small and tall, typically 2.2-2.8m of run with a high ceiling and original sash, and the boiler flue fixed on the outside wall. Most work is like-for-like replacement in an unchanged layout, sometimes with the addition of a slim peninsula where an old servant's passage has been opened up. A controlled parking zone means either a visitor permit sorted in advance or a suspended bay, and a suspension is applied for days ahead rather than on the morning. Panels come off the van in one trip where possible, since a tall piece handled repeatedly is a piece asking to be chipped. Handling is where these pieces get damaged.

1890s-1900s red-brick mansion flats around garden squares, Victorian terrace, Edwardian terrace with front bay and conversion maisonette. The lift is a small passenger car with a gate, and the alternative is a stone stair winding round the shaft with a turn at every half-landing. Anything that has to stay accessible - stopcocks, gas meters, riser access panels - is marked on the template so the stone is cut around it instead of over it. Two to three hours, once the units are in.

Purpose-built blocks with a communal front door, stone stairs and either no lift or a small original cage lift that is not rated for material loads. Streets around the squares are permit-only with narrow bays, and the squares themselves are private gardens so there is no vehicle route through - the carry is round the perimeter. Weight tells on a staircase more than anywhere else, because there is nowhere to set a piece down mid-flight and no way to change your grip once it is moving. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. The template records it along with everything else.

Worktop replacement, worktop splashbacks & upstands and worktop templating, in that order. Landlord work is scheduled around void periods, so the whole thing is a fixed window and the template date matters as much as the fitting date. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Same batch, same run, same day. Old cage lifts here are for people, not stone - assume the stairs and plan a joint at the sink accordingly.

Because a peninsula is seen from both sides, the underside of any overhang gets the same edge treatment as the top, which is easy to leave out of a spec. The existing layout is being kept, so the question is whether the old carcasses will take stone in that shape without more support. Carcasses have to be sound first. A boxed soil stack or service riser in the corner of a run eats into the worktop depth and has to be scribed around rather than cut square. The old top has been hiding it, so the first honest look at it happens when the laminate comes off. Found at template, not on fit day. Material runs from £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines rather than rolled into one figure.

Mixed ownership means the decision-maker is not always the person who lets us in, so it is worth being clear early about who signs the quote off. A 100mm upstand is the low-maintenance answer, and full-height stone is the one that has to be committed to early. Decided before fabrication, not after. Tell us the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the day rather than found on it.